Everyone has a Favourite Holiday
by DieselBones
Summary: A series following the study group through their favourite holidays to be built over the course of the coming year. Second chapter; Annie and valentine's. The only real ship is friendship but a handful of pairings are bandied about in keeping with the show's "everyone makes googly eyes at everyone" pattern.
1. New Year's Eve

Everyone has a favourite holiday. Britta's was New Year's Eve.

After dragging herself through the ever looming cesspool of Thanksgiving in November and then, of course, Christmas—both of which she objected to in her moral, areligious core even before adding the egregious societal pressure to spend them with family and forgive or at least tolerate all of their shitty behaviour—finally, _finally_ there was something to look forward to. A Shangri-La. A day which she was not only welcome but _encouraged_ to spend partying with friends, getting wasted and making out with whatever (consenting) warm body took her fancy come midnight. No strings, no expectations, no judgements; just the clock striking twelve and the slate being wiped clean for the start of a new year.

Best damn day of the year.

Britta threw back another shot, face scrunching up momentarily in an involuntary response. She was beginning to lose count of how many she'd had at this point, but not the _ability_ to count, so she figured she was still solid. Shouting an unheard 'thankyou' to the bartender over the ruckus, she snatched up the Screwdriver which had been laid out for her also and began forcing her way out of the mass of people crushing up against the bar. Scouting out the crowded room, Britta noted the sparing but festive decorations that had been hung up around the walls for the event. Gold and silver bunting draped from wall to wall, a few stupid looking party hats showing up from time to time on some young hopeful looking patrons, some strategic lighting effects, and the biggest hits of the year thumping in a seemingly endless playlist.

Finally, she spotted Jeff over near the tables on the far side of the bar, chatting up a pair of girls one of whom looked to Britta as if she had to have gotten in on a fake ID, where the music would be undisruptive enough that his silver tongue could work its magic.

Britta's smirk would've given something away if Jeff had seen her coming but, as things were, he didn't even notice her presence until it was too late. Taking as much care as she was currently capable to not spill her drink, Britta extracted one of her rings from its home on her right hand and slipped it onto her wedding finger. Sliding in next to Jeff and snaking an arm around his back so that her right hand rested on his far hip Britta cooed in a sickly sweet tone, "Naww, honey! Are you making friends?" She raised the glass in her other hand to make sure her faux symbol of the patriarchy's treatment of women as ownable, brandable objects was prominently displayed. "Did he tell you about our weekly couples book club?"

Jeff's reaction of surprise and discomfort came quickly, but not quickly enough to stop the retreat of his marks. "Wait, n— What the hell, Britta!? Not cool!"

"I'm just doing my duty as a feminist and defending my gender from men who would manipulate them and use them for their bodies." She plonked herself down at a nearby table, her satisfied giggle betraying a motive other than activism.

"Yeah. Sure." Jeff tried to ignore her chuckling but gave in. "It's not that funny."

"No, you're right, it's way funnier when they throw their drinks in your face."

"Ha."

"Twice as funny when you're the one who paid for them."

"Ha. Ha." Jeff sat across from her in a huff, picking up his mostly-finished Whisky Sour and staring at it as if trying to decide whether or not he still wanted to take a sip. Clearly Britta found herself much more amusing than Jeff did.

"Oh come on!" Britta leaned forward into his field of vision with a smile. "It's New Year's Eve! Lighten up a little!"

Jeff fixed her with an unimpressed look which somehow managed, without the aid of words, to point out the immense hypocrisy of Britta Perry telling anyone else to lighten up.

"Urgh, fine," she caved, rolling her eyes. "I'm sorry, Jeff, for ruining you're totally wizard pick up sesh with two young women who had NO idea what they were getting themselves into and for all you know could wind up—"

"Britta, don't Britta your own apology. Please. Quit while you're breaking even."

She leaned back in her chair with a scowl. At least Jeff was back in good spirits.

"I can't believe you even convinced me to come here tonight; you know there are, like, a dozen awesome parties I could be at right now? If you didn't have such good taste in bars this would have been a polite pit-stop appearance."

Britta's eyes widened as her face split into a grin. "What? What was that? You may have disguised it as an insult but you, Winger, you just paid me a compliment." Her smile disappeared into her glass as she swallowed a healthy dose of her own laughter along with the liquid.

"Let the record show that I've been drinking, that you have no proof and that if you tell anyone, I will deny it."

Sticking her tongue out at Jeff like in the good old days of the 'durr' war, Britta missed the flicker of his eyes down to the drink in her hands and the twitch of one of his eyebrows.

"So, how close are we then?" he asked, nodding generally at the watch Britta was wearing.

Britta pulled her wrist in close to her face—too close to be able to read the time all that effectively—and responded, "Uh, it's— We've got…" She licked her lips and squinted in concentration. "Look, the big one's pointed at the 10, ok! That enough information for you, Marty McFly!?"

"Alright, that's a weird thing to suddenly become hostile over, but 10 minutes, sure."

Jeff sat back easily in his chair, scrutinising his friend in silence. There was something off about the whole exchange and he couldn't quite tell what it was. Ordinarily they'd be trading jabs equally with perfect contentment right about now, in a sort of jaded, semi-meaningless flirtation. Then again, ordinarily Britta wouldn't have left him so far behind in terms of alcohol consumption.

"What?" Britta glowered, but her look swiftly changed to betray a kind of panicked insecurity at being examined so closely. "What is it?" She touched her hair self-consciously.

Jeff took a breath speak and then caught himself, opting for the ease of a lie over the risk of a genuine conversation. "Trying to crunch the numbers. Work out if that's enough time to undo the damage you did and convince those girls you're not my wife before the ball drops."

"You're disgusting," Britta scoffed, baring her teeth in something between a smile and a sneer.

"Yep!" Jeff downed the last of his drink and stood up, smacking his lips. "But I'm exactly the kind of disgusting that hot girls at New Year parties go for. Excuse me."

"No!"

A small hand caught Jeff tightly by the sleeve as he made to pass. He considered telling Britta off for creasing his jacket, but as he spun to look at her… There was that look of panic again, lighting up Britta's eyes.

"I mean…" She glanced around as if searching for a reason to explain her actions. "You wouldn't just leave me hanging here all by myself, right?" Britta bit her lip for a second and looked up at Jeff with way more meaning than he was comfortable with in his current position on the sobriety-drunkenness scale. Britta shrugged simply. "It's nearly midnight."

Jeff dropped his head with a heavy sigh. Looked like he wouldn't be avoiding that genuine conversation after all. "Alright," he commanded, not moving from where he stood. "Tell me what's wrong."

"What? Nothing! Nothing, what're you talking about?" Britta sputtered unconvincingly.

"Britta." Jeff spoke with a façade of patience that perfectly demonstrated his _impatience_ with the situation. Like he was dealing with a child that had gotten a hold of his BlackBerry. Rather than continue to make his point with words, Jeff picked up the hand still clutching at his jacket with one of his own, lifting it gently to hover between them. Never breaking eye contact with the blonde, he moved his thumb to softly caress the ring, still sitting on Britta's wedding finger where it didn't belong.

The former lawyer raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to one side. "Now, I'm no psych major," his smirk was even more smug than usual as he spoke, "but I'd say that someone as vehemently opposed to marriage as you are forgetting to take that ring off after your _hilarious_ gag earlier probably has some significance regarding your current mental state."

Britta's expression froze in the familiar shape of her embarrassed indignation; eyebrows knit together, lips pursed sourly, teeth obviously biting into the insides of her cheeks; refusing to back down from his gaze or look away even as the rest of her shrank. As Jeff slowly took his seat again, Britta claimed her hand back and primly switched her ring to its rightful place on her other hand.

"So," said Jeff calmly. "I'll ask again: what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Jeff went to stand again and Britta's hands shot out to halt him. "No, nothing! It's nothing, I just— Urgh! I just want to have someone to kiss come midnight, that's all!"

He settled back in. "Good, well the first step is admitting it." Britta rolled her eyes and folded her arms defensively across her chest. "Why me?" Jeff continued, shaking his head and shrugging. "You could get any guy in this building to make out with you in less than 10 seconds without even trying! Which, incidentally, you might need to do if we drag this out much longer."

There she was. Chewing at her own mouth again. Stubbornly refusing to let herself answer his questions.

"Britta, I'm not making out with you at midnight without either a very good reason or a lot more alcohol; with us it gets way too complicated way too fast."

"Fine!" She fired, leaning toward the much taller man defiantly, her arms suddenly bursting out, hands forming fists by her sides. "I don't need you anyway! I can find someone _else_ , like you said! Where's Annie? She said she was coming to this right?" She began twisting around in her seat, only half sitting as she looked around into the crowd.

"She— Britta? Britta. Hey, sit down already, geez!" He pulled her back down by her shoulders and she landed in her chair with a thud. "She texted to say she wouldn't make it—something about Abed locking himself in the bathroom—and I really do not have time to get into that particular cat-bag you just opened." His eyebrows raised and he shook his head again, trying to focus himself on the immediate problem. "Why do you need your kiss to be with someone from study group? You're telling me there's not a single stranger here you'd want to hook up with?" One of the best things about Britta's hipster bars was that they always attracted a good looking demographic, so that idea seemed preposterous to Jeff.

Britta took a deep breath, then sank the rest of her Screwdriver way faster than is generally advised, gulping desperately and letting a little bit dribble down her chin without stopping. Jeff waited. She finished and slammed the glass down on the table, wiping a hand across the liquid left on her face from the act. Jeff could see the panic had returned to his friend's eyes once again, but it seemed that this time she'd successfully dimmed it enough to get the words out of her mouth.

"I have to prove that I'm still Hot Blonde Spanish Class."

Jeff blinked. He'd been anticipating that after a full minute of chugging to buy time and courage and collect her thoughts that Britta's thoughts would have made more sense to him. "What?"

"You remember when you first got my number that's what you called me in your phone?"

"Yeah. You hated that."

"Shyeah, it's incredibly offensive and sexist and dehumanising—"

"So then why—"

"I don't know!" Her head landed dramatically in the nest of her folded arms on the sticky bar table beside her emptied glass.

Jeff glanced around, unsure how he was supposed to proceed or process the information he was getting.

"I used to be cool! I used to have a purpose and value in the group, I was peoples' goal!" Britta's head popped up again to lament, though still anchored low above the table top by the rest of her. "I was savvy and worldly. When did all that stuff take me from being admirable to being a joke? Not even the head of the joke, I'm the butt of the joke, I'm a joke butt."

Jeff saw over Britta's shoulder as the bar staff began turning the majority of the TVs away from the Time's Square feed to the local stations in preparation for reaching midnight in their own timezone. He was surprised the prompting didn't illicit a New York lifestyle anecdote from the woman across from him. It would have been a more obvious segue than some she'd used.

"Y'know, I haven't actually changed much" Britta was still speaking. "It's other peoples' inceptions of m— Perceptions of me." She propped her face precariously on a palm on a forearm on an elbow on the table. "Everything I did then that people thought had a point and made my place in the group make sense is the same stuff I do that makes me The Worst now. Then? You're trying to get in my pants; Annie is imitating me at every turn; Hot Blonde Spanish Class. Now? I'm The Worst; I'm The Worst; I'm The Worst. I just don't know when that happened."

Wait staff began passing out free glasses of cheap champagne from trays; it must have been getting close to midnight now and this seemed like a lot of self-doubt to try and unpack in that short an amount of time.

"You're the one I'm closest to in the group but now you've got your whole weird whatever it is going on with Annie which, look, I don't even wanna get into the psychology of _that_ right now." Inebriated enough to take off her edges, Britta actually sounded as though she'd be capable of it. She flicked miserably at a piece of peanut shell. "I just need to know that even if I am being replaced with the younger model that I'm still wanted on some level after that comparison."

A few precious pre-New Year moments disappeared in silence as Jeff hunted for a way to respond that didn't involve resorting to sarcasm. But before he could find one Britta was piping up again, with more vigour this time.

"And you know what? It's stupid, because no matter what I do, how hard I try; doesn't matter. Still The Worst. I can pull my life together and— I am getting my life together! I declared a major! I've written New Year's revelations! Reservations?"

"Resolutions."

"At's what said, jackass; revolutions."

"Wow, yeah, getting your life together, I see that. How many drinks have you had?"

"Iunno, morean 4 lessan 12?" Britta slurred, accepting an offered glass of bubbly, cheering a little at the sight of it.

Something struck Jeff that he hadn't thought of in a long time. At the end of their first year at Greendale—just _after_ he'd made the bad decision to walk out on Britta's and Slater's love confessions and just _before_ he'd made the bad decision to make out with a literal teenager—Jeff had told Annie how Britta made him feel. That when he was with Britta he felt like the real him. 'The guy he was three weeks after new years', he'd said, when all his resolutions were forgotten. Britta made him feel like simply being him as the mess he was could be good enough. Remembering sent a warm wave of affection washing over him for the particular mess sitting in front of him, and suddenly he needed Britta to have that feeling too. That she, exactly as she was, was good enough.

"Britta," he said firmly, plucking the champagne flute from her hands before she could take a sip. "I doubt you'll even remember any of this in the morning thanks to your valiant effort to destroy as many of your brain cells as you can in this one night, but I think I should tell you anyway."

The TV screens around the room informed him that they had a minute left until midnight. For some reason it had become important to him that he said what he had to say in time to save the end of this year for a woman who wouldn't even remember it. It was absurd, but so was everything in his life since attending that school.

"We rag on you, and we call you The Worst when you go into activist mode because we're actually starting to understand more of your argument and that makes us think and forces us to acknowledge our privilege—yes I just said that—which is uncomfortable and scary and takes more effort than we're brave enough to invest after putting so much of our energy into just surviving Greendale. You're the only one of us passionate enough to do both. And I know Abed likes to talk as if we're in a TV show, and TV shows train us to think there's only enough room for one major female character, necessarily cast as the love interest, but you and Annie are real people and individuals. You're not competitors for the attention and affection of the men around you. That's dumb, and it's sexist, and it shouldn't be the way women are pushed to interact with one another by a patriarchal system; _you_ taught me that and I believe it. No matter how much of an ego boost I get from being the prize. Having said all that, you will _always_ be Hot Blonde Spanish Class, in _addition_ to the wonderful human being you are, and if you honestly think you need to be desired by someone in the study group in order to keep your place? Then you're set because Troy looks at you like you're the fucking Sun."

"Really?"

"Really."

"And Annie isn't replacing me and dooming me to a life as a lonely spinster?" Her face was scrunching up as if it wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. She could hear the bar behind her begin its countdown from ten.

"Oh, I think your army of disabled, knit-wear covered cats is what's causing that."

She threw a few slaps to his arm.

"Ow! I'm kidding!" He laughed. "Hey. I'm kidding. You are still, misogynistic as it is to say, hot property. And here…"

He downed the champagne he'd confiscated from her in one go, just as the countdown was reaching its " _three, two, one_ ", and pulled his best friend in for a long, easy kiss through contented smiles.

As a cacophonous chorus of " _happy New Year!_ " and an enthusiastic, if off-key, rendition of Auld Lang Syne erupted from all around them, Britta quietly confirmed to herself that New Year's Eve was definitely the best holiday. No strings; no expectations; no judgements. Just the clean slate of another year beginning, and fireworks exploding in a rainbow across a half dozen bar TV screens while she kissed someone she actually cared about.

Jeff had been right; Britta didn't remember anything much they'd talked about when she woke up the following morning. Only a blacked out haze, smudged lipstick, and a raging hangover remained to tell her that she'd enjoyed her evening. The next time she caught a glimpse of her name's entry in Jeff's phone she knew that she should find it degrading but instead, somehow, didn't feel like she minded so much. It read:

"Britta (Hot Blonde Study Group)".


	2. St Valentine's Day

Everyone has a favourite holiday, whether they acknowledge it or not.

When she was younger Annie had been determined to enjoy them all equally, or at least come across as though she did. When pressed she would answer with family-centric holidays, usually Hanukkah for all the expected reasons, but who was she kidding—Annie was a total sucker for Valentine's Day. As if her tendency toward hopeless romanticism of a Cecily Cardew calibre weren't enough, strained post-rehab familial relationships really kicked her into the waiting arms of the heartless capitalism and cheesy façade of the season.

Or at least, it was her favourite in theory. Admittedly she'd only actually been a part of the dating scene for a couple of years now, and so far every time the 14th rolled around she'd been caught up in the hectic misadventures of her study group friends rather than the fluttery feeling of butterflies in her stomach. This year was going to be different. This year was all about romance; no losing focus; eyes on the prize.

She was buzzing for weeks ahead of the 14th, putting everything she had into playing it cool and not giving herself away. It wasn't a very convincing act, but no one seemed to question it. She'd charted graphs, composed lists, crafted schedules—either Jeff was going to ask her to the inevitable Greendale Valentine's Dance or she was going to ask him. She was. Absolutely. Just needed to wait to work out the perfect plan first. Any day now. Totally. Really. You know what, did she actually want her second real romantic experience with Jeff to be at a _Greendale_ dance? I mean, right?

She'd chickened out of every opportunity she had until there were only a few days left before the dance and it had become abundantly clear that Jeff had no interest in going at all, let alone asking anybody. She had no choice but to turn to her notes. Originally a half dozen pages of the book had been scribbled full of every idea for wooing Jeff that her brain could come up with, crossed out and replaced as she refined her plots and schemes. But, ever the Type A neat-freak, she'd removed those pages as soon as she'd settled on her official "Get Jeff" Valentine's plans, leaving only the meticulously formatted final results.

PLAN A.

People born in the 80s made mixtapes for their crushes, right? So all she had to do was find out what kind of music he liked and burn a CD of it. She hoped it would still hold the same sentiment on a disc; she wasn't entirely sure where she could find a cassette tape or player. She bought a set of ten blank discs (as it turned out, the smallest amount one could buy) in preparation and set about sleuthing to find out Jeff's taste in music.

Britta was no help, responding to Annie's questions by scoffing and insinuating that Jeff wouldn't know good music if it wrinkled his jacket at a party, followed by a long list of underground indie and punk bands Annie and Jeff have probably never heard of. Unable to ask for more accurate information without giving herself away, Annie had to come up with another method.

Initially she wanted to look up the biggest hits of his birth year, but he was strangely antsy whenever she broached the subject and would steer the conversation elsewhere before she even noticed he was doing it. It left her only one other option.

His iPod.

It took her another full day to find the exact perfect moment to sneak it out of his gym bag while he was getting ready to go on a run, and all she was rewarded with was a load of house music. And, I guess, a glimpse at Jeff in his running gear. She wondered briefly whether Jeff was shallow enough to have all his real music on a second iPod while he kept this one as empty and meaningless as he needed to in order to not give anyone the impression they know anything about him. Whatever the case, she couldn't spend any more time on Plan A. She had to move on.

PLAN B.

Annie had heard during bathroom conversation once that Jeff had tried to get a date with Britta by buying her semi-relevant Hallmark cards. Annie could manage that. It was probably an even better plan than A had been, since it didn't involve her having to pry into Jeff's life (which she imagined he wouldn't appreciate if he found out). It did, however, leave her standing in the greeting cards aisle for what felt like at least an hour just trying to find something perfect.

She needed something… Masculine. At this time of year she'd be hard pressed to find it in amongst the sea of pink and red hearts and flowers. Were giraffes masculine? Why were so many of these Valentines for sons or grandsons? What was it that Jeff liked about these? Whatever it was, she just couldn't seem to get it.

Her eyes locked on a minimalist black and brown card with a geometric design and a banner that simply said "Hey, Handsome". She couldn't imagine Jeff being offended by that in any way and it was definitely masculine, there was only one tiny red heart on it and NOPE! The equally minimal inside read "Just wanted to remind you that I love you". Nope, nope, nope. That was WAAAY too much. She tucked the card hastily back in its place and stepped away.

Scanning through the other options again, she landed on a messy collage ice cream cone. "Valentine goodness comin' at ya." and on the inside, "Hope your day is loaded with all the best stuff—Just like you." It was undoubtedly more casual than the last card, but the shiny red foil love hearts made her nose scrunch to think of Jeff opening it. No. No, there had to be something else.

Her arms folded around her torso in an attempt to hide her disheartened slump among gestures of trying to keep warm in the sterile, over-airconditioned department store. Then she spotted something that made her pause. A map motif, stitching in the shape of travel lines and a message; "My 3 is wherever you are." It reminded her of something… A song that had played in the back of her head the whole night after they'd won the debate together in their first year… _Home is wherever I'm with you_ … She gingerly ran a finger over the stitches, really only embossed cardboard, and hesitated a moment before plucking it up into her hands. Maybe it wouldn't mean nearly as much to him but to her NOPE! The inside read simply "LOVE YOU" in huge capital letters, underlined by a row of pink hearts, she was running away from that immediately.

Annie huffed, noting the time. Class would be beginning soon, she'd have to choose quickly. Roughly grabbing a boyish card in each hand she did a rudimentary inspection. A golden tyrannosaurus holding a big red heart on a field of white, covered in yet more soft three dimensional heart shapes. Her eyebrows knit together uncertainly. The other was pretty pink, but it did mostly depict an ocean reef with a smiling shark. "Sharp mind, killer grin, big heart." She'd said as much about him in the past. It would have to do. She tried to expedite her trip through the checkout but still had to run cross campus upon arrival to make it to Biology on time, shedding her cardigan for once due to overheating and forcing it down into her overstuffed backpack.

"Um… Jeff?" She caught up with him in the quad since he didn't show for class that day.

"Annie!" He looked up at her from the bench with a smile that made her cheeks flush, her knees weakening and feet turning inward shyly in response. Two words into the conversation and she was already fiddling with her bag straps and fixing her eyes downward, anywhere but his. "I was just about to come find you—I couldn't make it to biology today, do you have any notes I could borrow? I'd hate to fall beh— hey… No cardigan?" His grin turned to a smirk as he pointed and tilted his head. "We doing a genre episode I don't know about?"

"What?"

"Sorry," he shook his head. "Spending too much time with Abed."

"Well I— Ahh, I just thought it was nice enough weather and I should… Give it a try," she said, finally answering his question and rising up slightly on her toes as she thought how she wanted to word it. No way was she about to mention to Jeff the current sweat soaked status of her usual outerwear.

Jeff leaned back a moment, looking as if he were appraising a work of art, nodding sagely. "It's a good look for you."

Annie tried to reply, her thanks sticking in her throat. "Notes!" She squeaked suddenly and loudly. Her voice was too dry and in too high a register at this point to even try for normal communication, so she instead reached around to the front of her pack and pulled out the extra set of notes she'd started taking for him as soon as she'd spotted his absence, along with the shark-emblazoned card.

Now or never.

"Here." She handed them over, thrusting them toward him with much more force than necessary; she wanted to stop herself from backing out.

He accepted that pile of papers swiftly with an exaggerated bow of his head. "You are a life saver, thank you."

"Mhmm," was the only tight response she could manage while barely breathing. She felt like she was going to be sick. Maybe she could snatch it back right now and he wouldn't notice. She'd have to regain the ability to move first, but it wasn't looking like such a bad plan…

"What's this?" Too late.

"Oh— Um… I-I found—" Could she stop stumbling over her words for two seconds, please? Ordinarily she was the most eloquent one in the room! Ugh.

A sharp laugh broke her exercise in self-criticism and she looked to see Jeff grinning, flipping back and forth from the inside to the front of the shark card. She hadn't had time to sign it so she didn't know what the epigram actually said.

"That is astounding!" He handed the pink rectangle back to her still laughing. "Unbelievable! I didn't know they even made Valentines cards for mothers to give their sons!"

Stunned, Annie glance down at the card's interior for the first time; "To a son who's a triple threat." Of course. That T-Rex card probably had some harmless, awful pun; she knew she should've picked it instead.

"You should show that to Britta, too." He stood, adding Annie's notes to his pile of text books (one could only imagine that he'd purchased them as part of the student aesthetic) and gathering them to his side.

"Oh," Annie had drooped visibly. She shrugged with one shoulder and looked as deflated as her hugest, saddest eyes could enable. She couldn't help it. "You think she'll find it funny too?"

"Well, yeah, maybe. Who wouldn't." Annie nodded dimly in acknowledgement. "But I was thinking it might help her finally fully grasp the Oedipal complex properly as it applies to the real world." Jeff chuckled and offered his arm to the younger woman.

"Accompany you to the study room, M' Lady?"

She allowed a small smile in return. "Certainly, M' Lord."

PLAN C.

So plans A and B were both a total bust. There was something about Jeff that Annie just clearly did not understand yet.

And here was plan C, staring her in the face mockingly from its page in her notebook.

The Plan C she had written down in her organiser was to finally roll the dice like Shirley had once advised her in the past. Ask Jeff out directly. She could see in her mind already how completely that wouldn't work. The look of horror on his face. The way he'd glance around for an exit before grimacing and launching into an infuriatingly over-sensitive speech about age difference… No, she couldn't handle that.

No. No, it looked like she'd be spending the holiday attending the dance dateless once again. Probably helping Britta to awkwardly avoid Page—if Britta even showed up after last year, that is…

"Annie?" a sickly sweet woman's voice sounded beside her, causing Annie to snap her book shut in the haste to hide the notes she'd been making on Jeff from the potentially prying eyes of her friend. Shirley put a comforting hand on Annie's shoulder seeing how startled she'd been, cooing once again. "Honey? Are you okay? You've been sitting at this desk since before my business class started, it's getting late! Walk with me to my car and let me give you a ride home, sweetie."

It wasn't long before Annie was spilling her guts to the mother of three on their walk—with names and identifying details omitted, of course. It was a familiar routine between the two of them and a relief to Annie's all too teenage style of angst to get it off her chest. Shirley just listened politely all the way to the car, having to climb in and lean over to unlock the passenger side door from the inside.

"I guess…" Annie continued, plonking herself down in her seat without missing a beat. "I guess I had this image of Valentine's Day as this perfect romantic holiday in my head, and it turns out that it doesn't exist. Britta's right, it is just capitalistic crap." She slid down, despondent, into a position in which her seatbelt would almost certainly do nothing for her in the case of an accident.

"Oh no, I am calling it there, that is it, young lady!" Shirley demanded. "I have not worked day in and day out for over two years to keep Britta Perry from influencing you negatively to have you decide that she is rightly defiant in all things, and I have not rekindled and overcome hell in my marriage to have you spiralling out of a belief in love! On a boy trouble induced whim? Because some man doesn't recognise his luck in having your full attention? Not on my watch, nuh-uh."

Annie, who had expected simply to vent and not to receive a pep-talk, sat in dumbfounded silence, giving Shirley the room to continue. "Valentine's Day is about all kinds of love! Not just romance. Whether it's between friends, families, girlfriends and boyfriends. Or… us and the lord." She added the last part of the sentence quickly and quietly, half expecting to be shot down. "Don't let the greeting card companies or Britta tell you otherwise, Annie, the holidays are what we make them. We give them meaning, that's all."

Annie's heart melted, touched by what Shirley said, and she involuntarily released her side of their duo's patented 'aww'. "Shirley, that was beautiful! Thank you!"

"You're welcome. Now we're gonna make sure you have a wonderful Valentine's with or without a date." She began pulling out of the campus parking lot into the night and was already into excited planning mode. "Ooh, why don't we rope in Britta and have a girl's night? Just us girlfriends having a Galentine's Day, that's nice!"

Annie wasn't so sure, but the thought of organising an event was making her feel a little bit better. "Valentine's is the day after tomorrow; don't you have plans with Andre? And how would we even convince Britta to come? This is like the most commercial, materialistic holiday of the bunch!"

The two fell into the familiar pattern of planning from there, chatting happily the whole drive with Annie never giving Jeff another thought. Shirley knew that breaking the news to Andre that they wouldn't be spending their first February 14th as a remarried couple together would be tricky—Her husband was a romantic at heart and enjoyed any occasion on which he could make a big gesture. This year she asked for that gesture to be him taking the kids out for a night on the town so she and the girls could have the house to themselves. Convincing Britta turned out to be the easy part. Shirley and Annie guilted her into participation with a rhetoric of women supporting each other—a feminist stance they could all get behind—and a promise that she could point out the problematic and oppressive elements of all their favourite chick flicks as she watched.

Annie really was a sucker for Valentine's Day. The romance of the season was something she would always adore and look forward to, but now she had other kinds of love to celebrate during the season as part of a new cheesy tradition. The three of them got together on the 14th from then on, Britta insisting that if it was really about supporting each other as women then significant others should have no impact, something that Annie and Shirley either couldn't or didn't want to argue against. On these nights, every time Annie found Shirley and herself rolling their eyes good-naturedly at Britta describing exactly why whichever Hugh Grant character was a pig, she would wonder why she'd never thought to celebrate Galentine's before. It was, after all, a perfect fit for her favourite day of the year.


End file.
